A video clip that teaches employers how not to hire Americans has prompted two lawmakers to ask Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to investigate whether U.S. companies may be abusing the H-1B visa program.

The H-1B program lets U.S. employers import a certain number of foreign college graduates to work here for up to six years before they're supposed to go home. As part of the immigration debate, high-tech employers want to hire more of these skilled guest workers while labor groups say these newcomers push Americans out of white-collar jobs.

Siding with the displaced Americans, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, wrote Chao Thursday after seeing a five-minute video in which the marketing director of a Pittsburgh law firm is shown telling employers how they can advertise a job so as to appear that the only qualified applicant is a foreign national.

"Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker," says Lawrence Lebowitz of the Cohen & Grigsby law firm during a seminar taped in May. "In a sense it sounds funny, but that's what we're trying to do here."

A spokeswoman for the firm said the seminar was "compliant with all of the relevant laws governing the employment of foreign workers," while expressing regret at "the choice of words that was used during a small segment" of a longer seminar that was boiled down by H-1B opponents.

In their letter, Grassley and Smith said the seminar reveals "the blatant disregard for American workers and deliberate attempts to bring in cheaper foreign workers through the H-1B program" and urged Chao to use her powers as labor secretary to investigate "the law firm's unethical procedures."

H-1B program opponent Ron Hira, a professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology, said that in one respect, the flap is a misunderstanding because the seminar was aimed at companies that are sponsoring foreign workers for green cards rather than for temporary H-1B visas.

But, said Hira, by showing how to get around the tough requirements that exist -- on paper -- to ensure that green card applicants don't displace Americans, the video suggests how easy it must be for employers to hire foreign workers under the H-1B program, which has far weaker protections against job displacement.

Oracle lobbyist Robert Hoffman, who also speaks for an employer coalition called Compete America, said his group agrees that "this video should be investigated." But Hoffman said the mini-scandal does not undercut the main argument of tech employers -- that they can't hire enough skilled workers without more H-1B visas.

Hoffman sought to turn the video -- created by an H-1B opponent -- to his advantage. He said it proved the need to pass the Senate immigration reform legislation that, among many other things, gives Silicon Valley more H-1B workers while beefing up rules to make sure that U.S. workers are not displaced.

"The anti-fraud provisions in the Senate bill go right to the heart of what this video is about," Hoffman said.

Kim Berry, the Sacramento man who created and posted the video, said the episode has been a learning experience.

Berry heads the Programming Guild, a self-described group of over-40, underemployed software engineers. He said others in his network pointed him to where Cohen & Grigsby had posted a longer seminar video -- though it is now down. It took him about two hours Saturday to find the best sound bites and create the five-minute clip.

"With all the things grasping for people's attention, I guess you've got to boil it all down," he said.